OUR NEWS ARCHIVE
October
Carmen McRae and Sammy Davis Jr.
Hello there! Glad you're still reading this. Today we've added 65 'new' renditions to our playlist. The most interesting ones are a number songs done by Carmen McRae and Sammy Davis Jr. back in 1959.
Many years ago we added their 1957 album called 'Boy Meets Girl'.
It's simply a wonderful vocal cooperation and Sammy is spotty. He resorts to a Jerry Lewis voice in some of the numbers, he's having fun, but it doesn't hold up. They sung the most relaxed and funniest rendition of 'Baby It's Cold Outside' ever. The arrangements by Buddy Bregman, Mort Stevens and Jack Plies are the "top of the heap".
Recently we finally found their second duet album, made two year later. It's lesser known and an album strickly filled with Porgy & Bess songs. So no humorous Sammy this time. Here's a quote about Porgy & Bess from its legendary composer & songwriter George Gershwin. New York Times, October 20, 1935: "Porgy & Bess is a folk tale. Its people naturally would sing folk music. Therefore I wrote my own spirituals and folksongs. But they are still folk music—and therefore, being in operatic form, Porgy and Bess becomes a folk opera." Opera? Don't worry! Carmen & Sammy present their duets very 'easy to listen to'.
September
MP3 or AAC. Which codec is better for the both of us?
The players on this website uses the AAC codec and Mp3. AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) and MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3) are lossy formats for audio files. MP3, an audio-specific format, was the de-facto standard of digital audio compression for the transfer and playback of music on digital audio players.
But today, designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves a better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates. This difference in quality is more obvious at lower bitrates. AAC is also Apple's alternative to MP3. It's lossy and compressed too, but sounds generally better. AAC uses only half the bandwith compared to mp3 reaching the same audio quality. So using AAC on your and our side makes streaming an easier connection listening in your car or using WIFI with low bitrates. Plus all current devices, Androids too, can handle AAC.
August
Today is a special day for jazz singer & pianist Diane Marino from Nashville Tennessee. Today Diane's brand new cd called 'I Hear Music' will be officially released and is also promoted on our stream from today on. Next to her vocalizing qualities, this album with GAS standards only, is amazing well recorded. But that's not our point. Like always, Diane Marino brings them all with her own arrangements and with a very recognizable voice and style of singing. And that is what we are always looking for. I hope you'll enjoy this promotion too!
July
We made a lot of progress in fine-tuning things on this 'bootstrap' website version.
Its superfast startup, less than a second, also on the other side of the ocean, feels very comfortable. Compared to the old version of the website it is a true blessing. The player & playlist combination got some 'hoorays' also. Plus changes in color settings, images, text, you name it. A faster/better reachable website also results in more reactions directly and in our guestbook. Direct messages have a different tone of voice than the ones in our guestbook. Well; you can't please everyone, can you?
But we didn't forgot to focus on our main ingredient; the music. Among others we added more songs by this very funny Rose Murphy. (brrr brrr brrr .. busy line!) We could also add renditions by some remarkable and new singer names like; Samara Joy (two albums) and Spencer Day. His latest album 'Broadway by Day' is currently promoted with a wonderful introduction by Jennifer Roberts
June